It’s 15 January, and I’m officially(ish) halfway through my first month of my 365 Days Photo Project! I’m pretty pleased with myself for having reached this milestone, considering that a few other people I know that took up the project have since dropped it. The idea sounds easy enough: post one photo a day, preferably something you took that actual day, but not necessarily – some days, weather, work, or other extenuating circumstances can prevent you from making it out to take photos.

But even the aforementioned loophole, it’s surprisingly difficult to find the time to post one new pic a day. The longer I’ve been doing it, however, the more disciplined I’ve become about enforcing the posting policy, and it helps that I have a couple of other friends on Facebook that are doing the project also – I guess we’re kind of like gym buddies now, in that we pressure each other to keep it up for risk of ‘losing face’. I’ve also gotten some really great feedback on the photos that I’ve posted from my friends list, and knowing that there are at least a few people looking forward to my daily posts really encourages me to keep getting out there and taking good photos.

My 30-day trial of Alien Skin Exposure is almost up, and I’ve decided that I will pull the trigger on buying the software – my first technology purchase of the year! But I’m reassuring myself that it’s not a frivolous, spur-of-the-moment purchase, which would violate one of my new years resolutions. No, I’ve been using Alien Skin Exposure a lot when processing my photos, and almost all of the ones that I have posted for my photography project have been processed through Alien Skin Exposure. The US$249 license cost is going to hurt my wallet, but it’s totally worth it in my opinion – I’ve been able to get some really unique looks to my photography and turn relatively mundane-looking photos into stuff that’s a lot more eye-catching and classic-looking.

One of my favourite Alien Skin Exposure-processed shots

I’ve also started interacting with the Flickr community a little more by joining some groups, such as ones that use a particular type of camera, and others that cover photography in a particular location. I’m still not getting as much feedback for my photos as I do in Facebook, but at least I’ve finally taking advantage of my ‘Pro’ membership (which I’ve had for a few years now and never really took advantage of!) and cross-posting lots of new photos to my Flickr and Facebook accounts!